Into the Water
by andthestorystarts
Summary: Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock's almost finished untangling Moriarty's web, when he goes back to check on John, and finds him about to try to commit suicide, which he attempts to stop. Angst for now WIP
1. Chapter 1

It had been three long years, or there about, since Sherlock had jumped off St Bart's. John was still breaking, though people had tried to mend him, without much success. It was like trying to construct the Eiffel Tower with blue tack- it wouldn't work, it took a lot of effort, and it would break. John acted happy, sometimes, and on rare occasion he actually was. But everyone could see the emotion that attempted to hide behind a plastered, fake smile. And it was about as far from happy as you could get. About the only thing everyone achieved with their efforts was simply keeping him from doing himself harm, keeping it at bay, though most of them knew that he would completely break eventually. Everyone avoided saying the name around him. He knew how they looked at him, pity being among one of the main feelings there. He disliked pity.  
He had stayed away from the flat for months. Less than a year, but more than half. He had avoided it, purposely going out of his way sometimes to do so. He hadn't known how he would react. But one day he had found himself in the general area by accident, and had gone to see it.  
John didn't leave it after that, and only went back to where he had been staying to get his things. Simply put, he stayed in Baker Street. Mrs Hudson had kept it as it was, for which he was glad about, though it made it harder to come back to sometimes.  
Every once and a while he woke up and forgot what had happened, going out to see Sherlock before stepping into the living room and remembering. He once got as far as making tea for the two of them, then stopped dead in the middle of the living room, then fled to his room- with the tea. He didn't come out of there for a couple of hours.  
He hadn't moved many of Sherlock's things, tidied up a little bit of the papers, before noticing that he preferred them all spread out and messy. It made him feel a little bit like Sherlock was still around. He hadn't moved his instrument from it's case.  
He missed the scraping of the bow across the strings of a violin at three in the morning. He missed being dragged out of the flat at the most idiotic hours, coming back to it bone tired. He missed the tall, lanky detective with the shock of black hair sulking on the couch in his dressing gown.  
He missed Sherlock.

John stood on a bridge, looking out over the Thames. The water swirled below, and the wind was starting to cool, cutting through his sweater. His chin tucked into his scarf- which admittedly was one of the detectives ones, the scent of him long since gone. Oh the expressions when he had worn it outside for the first time. Again, mainly pity. There was some surprise too, though that was more hastily covered up. He was gazing down at the water, wondering what day it was. He had lost track at some time, and didn't really see the point in finding out again. He had been going through the days in a blur, not really picking up on anything, nor fixating on something for long. He had times when he was back to himself, but he was usually back in the flat when they happened, and he soon started to drift. Some psychiatrist had said that it could be a coping mechanism. He had stopped going to see her long ago, when she said that Sherlock had been a fake, that the newspapers had proved everything false. It was one of the very few times in his life where John had wanted to hit a woman. He had given cold goodbyes, and simply left. Hadn't seen her again. Refused to, though people tried to make him go. They gave up eventually. He was back to thinking about Sherlock again. Everything reminded him of the detective.  
'She said you were a fake.' John murmured to the water below. He had taken to talking to Sherlock when there was no one around, or when people couldn't hear him, when his voice would be smothered. 'So did a lot of other people. Idiots.' A very small smile, tweaking one corner of his mouth up slightly.  
Then his eyes dulled a little, and the smile disappeared entirely, turning down at the corners. 'You- you were a fucking idiot, Sherlock.' His voice broke on the detectives name, which he hadn't used in over a year. 'Why did you have to step off of that roof, and leave me here? You didn't have to. You're just a selfish bastard.' His voice was going wobbly, a clear indication as to him attempting not to cry. 'I still text you daily, did you know that? Sometimes it's just me forgetting, and asking you something, like what you want from the shop, but sometimes it's just things I wish I had told you.' He had never told him how he felt, but had edged toward it in a few of his messages, before shying away and avoiding the topic. Stupid, running from texts that would never be read. He stood there for a long time, thinking. Then his hands withdrew from the warmth of his pockets, phone in one, and he tapped out a message, pausing to look at the water again before he hit send.

Sherlock had always checked on John when Mycroft gave him updated information on him, how he was doing. Even if it was the smallest thing, something that sounded unimportant. Now it was that John had been staring at the water of the Thames for an unusual period of time.  
More than once, Sherlock had gotten the homeless network to keep an eye on him, sometimes called in a favour. (In one case, John seemingly purposely walked into the path of an oncoming car, and someone pushed him out of the way- Sherlock's doing. John had seemed particularly bad that week, so he had sent someone to make sure he wouldn't be able to do something stupid.) But this was one of the few times that he went in person. He was in London, had almost finished untangling Moriarty's web, and badly wanted to see him, even if it was from afar, even if he couldn't reveal himself. He had been watching the mainly still figure for a little while, from a fair distance, a minute or two away if he ran- when his phone buzzed, indicating that he had a text. He reluctantly took his eyes off of his former flatmate, sticking his hand in his pocket to retrieve the phone. _New message received_. He slid his thumb across the screen, then blinked. For a second the only thing his mind focused on was the name, _John_, then shifted to read the rest. It wasn't unusual to get texts from John, and he knew that he really should have switched numbers-_Sentiment_- but hadn't, against Mycroft's wishes and warnings. His heart slammed into his ribs as he properly processed the message, his gaze rising from the screen to look back at the figure that was now climbing up onto the railing of the bridge. Afterwards, he vaguely remembered dropping the phone, the screen still displaying the message.  
_Sherlock, I know that this is idiotic, that you aren't at the other end of this, that you are rotting in the ground, but just let me get this off of my chest. I loved you- still do, really. I never told you, but I'd be surprised if you didn't figure it out. You jumped, and took my heart with you. I'm simply joining you to reclaim it._  
He ran. Towards his former flatmate, towards the man who put up with everything he had done as no one else did, towards someone who didn't seem to want to be saved.


	2. Chapter 2

John distantly remembered reading something about people who survived suicide jumps, that the majority of them found that three quarters of the way down they realised that everything that had caused them to jump could be fixed, that they could survive through it all. Before the incident, John had thought that it was true, that anything could be fixed. Now, he had shifted into the category which believed the opposite. He honestly couldn't see the point in going through life in a dull haze, not often knowing or caring what was going on when his detective wasn't with him.  
He had thought about other methods, hadn't really planned to jump from a bridge, had thought about pills, which seemed a little weak, just going to sleep and never waking up again. And if someone got to him in time, could be prevented, pump his stomach. On a particularly bad day he had turned his gun over in his hands, finger drifting over the trigger. he had eventually put it away, feeling that he had seen too many people die because of guns, and that he didn't want to submit Mrs Hudson to finding him like that.  
The water looked cold. He knew that it wouldn't be the fall that killed him, it would be the cold and water, getting into his lungs. The river was deep.  
In the few seconds that all of this took for all of that to pass through his head, a small crowd had stopped and gathered. A couple of people had asked them what he was doing- _As if it wasn't obvious. _And yet, none of them had attempted to stop him or get him off of the railing. _Figures._  
His stomach gave a little flip at the distance down. He had left his own version of a note- On Sherlock's phone-_That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?_- So he had no reason to prolong this. His foot wavered in the empty air for a second before he tipped forward and he was falling.

One of the last things that he had expected was for some stranger to grab hold of his arm a split second before he did fell, fingers digging in tightly, a strong enough grip to drag whomever it was right along with him.

They hit the water, fully submerging under the cold water for a few seconds, before natural buoyancy kicked in and they popped back up to the surface, John already swearing.  
'What the fuck are you doing?' He was in the process of wiping water out of his eyes when a familiar, deep baritone answered him, the voice he hadn't heard in three years, that he had been missing desperately, that he had wished for every single one of those days.  
'I could ask you the same question.'  
John froze, before remembering that _the river was deep_, and kicking to stay afloat. He slowly turned around to face- no, he died. Either it was a one in a billion chance, the world mocking him by letting him find someone with a voice like _his_, or it was-  
'Sherlock.' The name left him in as a breathy half question.

They were both soaking, the detective and the doctor. Drops of water were dripping down them, off wet strands of hair, winding their way down skin, with the intention to join their brethren. There was a few seconds of silence, in which John raked his eyes over the other man, as if trying to memorise every new detail that had appeared since he had last seen him. Sherlock seemed to be wearing a coat, not unlike the one he used to wear while running around London, a simple scarf, and(as a guess, the water made it difficult to tell,) a pair of fairly plain trousers. All of which were, obviously, now waterlogged, due to the dip in the river.  
Sherlock had already known how John was doing, what he looked like, heck, possibly even what he had for breakfast(if he had had breakfast.) He kept his eyes low, looking at the water off to the side of them, averting his eyes, looking ever so slightly awkward. He shifted slightly, kicking, trying to keep his head above the line where water meets air, at which John hesitantly stretched out a hand, to see that he wasn't just another delusion.  
Part of the reason why John had become sick of the world, and was losing touch with reality, was because he had kept thinking that he had seen Sherlock. Those were mainly the times where he had snapped out of the hazy dream and properly paid attention to his surroundings. Always ended up disappointed. A few times he had thought that he had seen the detective out of the corner of his eye, heard his voice, but if this was an hallucination, then it was the most realistic one he had seen, had only caught glimpses before, and not to mention that it picked a hell of a time to show up. But the hand on his arm had been real, solid. So..  
His fingers came into contact with the coat fabric. Rough, a little coarse. Not particularly good quality, but would hold out against the weather, and could stand a little damage.  
John's jaw locked. He felt the urge to scream at him, anything that came to mind, coupled with the urge to hit him, though that option was mainly limited to splashing childishly while they were still in the river. His gaze shifted toward the land, and he could see Sherlock's head turn to look at it as well. There was a short pause, filled by the water lapping against them, before John cleared his throat.  
'Right.' His tone sounded like he was holding back some form of strong emotion, making the word sound final, the conversation closed. He started moving toward the land, started swimming, which he hadn't done in a while. He didn't talk about that, though he could hear Sherlock doing the same. He pulled himself onto the land, stumbling a little, already having gotten used to the water, and squeezed as much liquid out of his clothes as possible, purposely not looking at the other man. He didn't speak. He felt like a child, ignoring someone because you're mad at them. He chose to walk back to the flat, partly because he didn't want to get the seats of a cab wet, and he needed the time to straighten his thoughts out, even if it would be cold. He noted that Sherlock tagged along behind him.

Sherlock had decided not to say anything, feeling that if he did, John would snap and start raging at him, though that was almost impossible to prevent, and he knew that it was going to happen, sooner or later.

John's feelings were rather tangled and confused, and he was glad for the walk to get some time to try and pick it apart. Part of him wanted to start screaming at Sherlock, anything at all, as long as it came out in volume, and as long as he included somewhere something along the lines of, _'Fuck you, why did you leave me?'_ A different part was glad, for the fact that Sherlock had survived, overjoyed actually. Another was confused, as to how he did it, he had checked for a pulse, it hadn't been there. And a small part that had made itself known wanted to simply shove the detective against the nearest thing that could hold their weight and kiss him. He shoved that last one to the side, knowing that he would almost definitely dwell on it later, when he had properly come to grips with the fact that Sherlock was _alive. _


End file.
